Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2015 - Page 58

Core Values
Tampere is reinventing its city
centre and waterfront – and it’s
just getting started
The City of Tampere is looking to retool its downtown area –
and use this “core power” to take the entire Tampere Region
into a whole new level. The Tampere City Centre already
holds plenty of appeal, but there’s much more to come:
according to the long term plans, the city centre will feature
15,000 new residents and 15,000 new jobs by 2030.
D
irector Tero Tenhunen says that the
name of the game is making the city
centre as attractive as possible by
capitalising on the potential of Tampere’s
extremely compact structure and unique
location.
“There are already as many as 40,000
people living in the city centre, so we’re
talking about a very significant increase,”
he says, adding that the majority of the
new commercial development will be in
the vicinity of the railway station.
There is already a brand new downtown tower hotel just off the railway station
– and from the looks of it, the tower may be
but the first sample of new “Vertical Tampere”. As the train station will enter a total
makeover, an ambitious deck construction
will be built over the tracks – and towers
will be raised upon the deck.
Hybrid Power
Tero Tenhunen points out that the deck construction will bring welcome cohesion into
the city structure, now divided by tracks. In
the process, a totally new city district will
emerge.
“For the coming development, we feel
that the railway station will be the Ground
Zero,” he says.
Hybrid construction will be one of the
key drivers here: commercial use, offices
and residential solutions will all be deployed.
The City is opting for a well-balanced mix
that will add diversity into downtown.
Still, vertical dreams are but one element of the big picture. Tenhunen talks of
the City’s “Five Star Downtown” concept
which calls for urban appeal, high qual56 Nordicum
ity, diversity, attraction and originality –
all things that Tampere has in spades, but
there’s still room to improve:
“For instance, we have barely scratched
the surface of what we can achieve in waterfront construction. In the coming years, our
shorelines will be totally renewed,” Tenhunen says.
Reclaim the Shores
It is true that for a community founded
between two lakes, the shoreline has been
rather underdeveloped so far. Tenhunen
explains that development plans were
delayed for a long time – subject to the completion of the Rantaväylä tunnel.
“As the tunnel will take car traffic
underground, the waterfront will open in a
new way at the Ranta-Tampella District,”
Tenhunen says. The tunnel is already half
done, with completion scheduled in 2017.
“Ranta-Tampella will be a great example of ambitious waterfront construction,”
says Tenhunen. Eventually, more than 3,000
residents will make their homes in the new
waterfront community, right next to the
commercial services of the downtown.
Still, Ranta-Tampella is not the only
high-profile waterfront project in the making: Tenhunen expects to see the same volume and even higher quality at Eteläpuisto
area, just a bit south from the city centre.
The Eteläpuisto architectural competition
explored the various uses of waterfront –
the local Pyhäjärvi Lake – and these ideas
are guiding the coming development effort.
“With these kinds of sites, there is a
big responsibility, since you only get one
chance. This is why we want to make sure
that everything is top-notch from architecture to services and parks.”
Underground Success
The role of the Rantaväylä tunnel is crucial, as it will eliminate traffic bottlenecks
and facilitate smoother downtown logistics. Underground parking is yet another
game-changer: the City wants to remove as
much as 60 % of street parking and take the
cars underground. The new next-gen underground parking facility P-Hämppi is leading
the charge, having won the European Parking Association (EPA) Award in the category of best new parking facilities in 2013.
It represents the first \